Iran’s unrelenting attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf yesterday pushed oil back above US$100 a barrel, as US and Israeli strikes pounded the Islamic republic with no sign of an end to the war in sight.
Iran is trying to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the US and Israel to halt their bombardment, which started the war on Feb. 28.
Iran’s president said its attacks would continue until Tehran gets security guarantees against another assault, indicating that even a ceasefire or US declaration of victory might not halt the conflict.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has promised to “finish the job,” even though he claimed Iran is “virtually destroyed.”
Iran-backed Hezbollah militants launched 200 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel while sirens rang out and loud booms from the interception of Iranian missiles could be heard in other areas. Israel launched another wave of attacks on Tehran and in Lebanon, where 11 people were killed.
The UN refugee agency said that up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war, and most have fled from Tehran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas.
At least 759,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon, it said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian yesterday wrote online that for the war to end, the world would need to recognize Iran’s “legitimate rights,” pay reparations and offer guarantees against future attacks.
In addition to attacking energy infrastructure around the region, Iran has a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported.
Amid speculation that the US might target Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, Iran’s main oil terminal, Iranian Islamic Consultative Assembly Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on social media that any attempt to take Iranian islands would “make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders.”
With traffic in the strait effectively stopped, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 9 percent to more than US$100 a barrel, up 38 percent over what it cost when the war started. Prices have swung back and forth in the past few days, at one point surging to about US$120 a barrel.
Two tankers were ablaze in an Iraqi port after a hit by suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats.
Images verified by Reuters as having been filmed from the shore of the Port of Basra showed ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky, after the attacks, which Iraqi authorities blamed on Iranian boats. At least one crew member was killed.
Hours earlier, three other ships had been struck in the Gulf. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp claimed responsibility for one of the attacks, on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze, which it said had disobeyed their orders. Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates.
Additional reporting by Reuters
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS